pmp10

Nothing to do with stalinism but with the viewer distance to the tragedy. As long as SW will refuse to show anything more drastic than frying anakin those numbers will not even have the weight of a statistic. And I doubt such techniques work well for universe-building. Since everybody wants to out-do the movie I imagine blowing up planets is almost common place by now.

I wouldn't know if Bio can do 'dark' but why would they even try in the SW setting? The worst thing that seems to happen there is blowing up planets.

This has nothing to do with the story itself but the way it was handled. You shouldn't break the flow of an action game with fetch quest, long exposition and moral choices.

At least you can buy all DLCs. Some people still can't even get Lonesome road

Wait - wasn't that 'though ethical choices' part of some other ubisoft project? Someone talked about decisions regarding human shields and sacrificing civilians to stop a suicide bombers.

Uh no thats still an unnecessary annoyance. By that math 5 'friends' would result in a call happening pretty much every time you save the game.

It's just too bad they wouldn't understand 'no' and keep trying. There is a point were trying to push an 'optional' content onto a player becomes a major annoyance.

No.

The Byzantines had a mass of political maneuverings, infighting, backstabbing and general fun and games going on. The Imperial Court, the Bureaucracy, the Nobility, the Soldiers, and that's only keeping to what was happening within the Empire. Take in the efforts of the Persians as neighbours... They also had the cold war and on/off border skirmishes and outright short wars over a few centuries. Something that the Sith Inquisitor should have a good handle on. So therefore, someone with knowledge of how that sort of stuff actually happens.. is more likely to produce an interesting setup then someone who has no clue at all. Every dark-age/medieval state has struggled with such problems. I just don't agree that there are any similarities between those and the sith empire. You can't just say that Byzantine Christianity is the same as Force worship and start copy-pasting. If you really need inspiration there are plenty of modern autocracies that would make for a far better model. That's mostly a result of Crusader propaganda and a very long history. Most western kingdoms couldn't even dream of the sophistication and organization of byzantine state and so they didn't comprehend it fully. If we were to examine 1000 years of history of say France or Britain their history has seen as much civil strife as Byzantium.

I really don't see why Byzantine History should be at all relevant to the Inquisitor storyline. The only things Byzantines and Sith had in common is that they were ruled by an emperor.

It's a regular crack. Just as removing any other DRM it violates EULA and can cause problems with cheats protection and game updates.

Bastion is on sale for half-price.

So in an essence a World of Mech? Was hoping for something more.

That's possible but I still think development time unusual. Obsidian is after all a company that made it's position on sequels reusing assets and technology. It also seem to clash with the rumors of free2play or iphones/XBL games which should take less time to develop.

Correct me if I'm wrong but if the 3-projects rule holds true then the last time we knew what all 3 were was before AP release. That would mean that currently the oldest project is in production for well over a year and still has not been announced. Seems like plenty of time for canceling a project and starting a new one.

That's pretty unlikely. You know that BF3 doesn't actually use Origin, right? It just acts as an activation portal, similar to the way Steam does. The game is handled through your browser, which after a bit of time has turned out to be pretty awesome. How is that awesome? That you need to alt-tab to access function that game interface should provide is a major flaw IMO. And since when a full fledged DRM is called an "activation portal"?

Well, that's the thing. They all three worship the one and same God, regardless of what name they attached to their subject of worship. In broad terms, Judaism don't believe Messiah has been born yet. Christians believe He was born and died approx. 2000 years ago. Muslims believe Jesus, while being a messenger from God (Prophet) wasn't the Messiah and got a bunch of new texts to read. Still the same God of Abraham and his offspring they are talking about (i.e. a pantheon of one). Hence my comment about the devil being in the detail. It seems more about semantics as to what constitutes "crucial tenants of faith"(sic). I.e. if a Christian acknowledges that Buddha lived and tought his ideas, does that make Christians and Buddhists the same religion? Well no - Christians Muslims and Jews don't worship the same god. The later religion may claim that it is as they'll maintain theirs is the better understanding but that matters little to the earlier religions which will refute that. And the differences of theology are very significant. Christian idea of a god exist in a trinity and promises resurrection of the body - those are cornerstones of the faith not found in Islam and Judaism and cannot be discounted as mere detail. And let's leave Buddhism out of it as by western standards most of it qualifies more as a philosophy. I still don't agree that in the example, Dwarves and Elves have the same religion (because of the differences in the tenets of faith). If the dwarven god says trees are filthy weeds and should be chopped down while the elven god says trees are holy spirits and should be hugged, you have some seriously different tenets of faith. No that wouldn't be tenants of faith but some form of commandments or alternatively a practice of worship. The nature of deity/pantheon is what's really described in tenants. Pfff, you'd have to write a Dogma and sign me up first.

Isn't that sort of contradictory? I would think whether or not to worship a particular god or not a crucial part of a faiths tenets. That would make Judaism, Christianity and Islam a sectarian difference according to your second line, yet different religions according to your first line. Err no. I wrote a part of an pantheon. Judaism, Christianity and Islam could be sects of the same religion if Yahweh God-father and Allah formed a pantheon. If you believe that you in the afterlife go to the halls of Grimnir as a dead dwarf and believe that you go to the gardens Morr as a good human Empire citizen, would you simply call that different sects? Why would there be any conflict in that case? I see no problem in belief that different people go to different places after death. In fact religions usually describe different forms of afterlife depending on the way our earthly lives go. If good people can go to heaven and bad people to hell why would a separate afterlife for humans and dwarfs lead to a schism?

That's a completely unnecessary definition. Every single religion has it's tenants of faith that list exactly what beliefs are necessary to be considered a part of it. It's pretty simple - if you don't believe in Jesus Christ being a son of god and his subsequent martyrdom/resurrection you cannot be considered a Christian. Likewise if you reject Mohammed as a prophet you can't be considered a Muslim. Differences in crucial tenants of faith point out to splits between religions. On the other hand the differences in which part of the pantheon to worship and the manner of that worship is a sectarian difference. The split between Catholic Protestant and Orthodox churches is a prime example of Christian sects going about worship in different ways. If a group of fantasy races have the same core beliefs that are not mutually exclusive then they are a part of the same religion. If in that worship they concentrate on different deities and use different ritual it just means that they belong to different sects.

Just because you call your supreme being 'God' doesn't mean you form a part of the same religion. The theological differences between Judaism Christianity and Islam are far too large to be considered a mere detail.

By definition "pantheon" covers all deities that are thought to exist (whether worshiped or not) and yes that's a real world definition. Actually it would be the same religion just a different sect. Just because your worship focuses on different set of deities (or different aspects of existing ones) doesn't mean you follow a different religion. You need to deny some crucial tenant of religion in question to be a part of a different belief.

Religious schisms in human history have regularly resulted in wars, massacres and persecutions. Even if you can set political correctness aside that's still one ugly side of religion that people wouldn't like to revisit.

Because gaming audience demands some level of familiarity with the setting. What gamers are familiar with (in terms of religion) is modern Christianity and ancient paganism.

Posted March 2006 with no news since. I wouldn't expect an effective mind-machine interface anytime soon.